In analytical laboratories and, in particular, clinical laboratories, a multitude of analyses on biological samples are executed in order to determine physiological and biochemical states of patients, which may be indicative of disease, nutrition habits, drug effectiveness, or organ function.
Biological samples used in those analyses may comprise a number of different biological fluids, including, but not limited to, blood, urine, cerebral-spinal fluid, saliva, etcetera. These original biological samples may be processed prior to the analysis. Often the samples are collected in vials which already contain additional substances (e.g., citrate buffer, EDTA buffer, and/or fluids forming a barrier during centrifugation).
Before an analysis can actually be carried out on a biological sample, it is usually necessary to perform a set of pre-analytical steps on the sample. These pre-analytical steps may include, for example, unloading a sample from a sample input station, diluting or concentrating the sample, capping or de-capping the sample, aliquoting the sample, supplementing the sample with various buffers, media and substances, or centrifuging the sample or an aliquot thereof to separate sample constituents. For safety reasons, as well as for reasons of analytical quality, reproducibly, and efficiency, a growing number of such pre-analytical steps and procedures are executed automatically by automated sample workcell systems, also known as “automated pre-analytical systems.”
PCT International Publication No. WO 2017/018897 describes a method for processing chemistry and coagulation tests automatically in a laboratory workcell system comprising multiple analyzers and a centrifuge. For the centrifuge, a current centrifuge operation protocol is established. Patient samples are classified at the input station of an automated clinical workcell system and treated differently according to their pre-analysis centrifuging requirements. If a sample has centrifuging requirements which match the currently established centrifuge operating protocol, the sample is loaded into the centrifuge, centrifuged according to the established centrifuge operating protocol, and then forwarded to an appropriate analyzer. If a sample does not have centrifuging requirements which match the currently established centrifuge operating protocol, the sample is retained at the input station until the centrifuge operating protocol is changed appropriately. After the change of the centrifuge operating protocol is completed, the sample is loaded into the centrifuge and centrifuged according to the new operating protocol. According to the disclosed method, only samples requiring the same centrifugation protocol can be centrifuged at the same time in the centrifuge.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0037503 describes a method for automatically operating a sample handling system to conduct assays on a number of patient samples by comparing the assays to be conducted with a set of defined assay rules. A set of analyzers that are part of the sample handling system are subdivided into analyzers that are in compliance with the defined assay rules and analyzers that not in compliance with the set of defined assay rules. If necessary, at least one analyzer is brought into compliance with defined assay rules of an assay to be conducted on a set of patient samples. The patient samples are then supplied to the analyzer being in compliance with defined assay rules.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,865,718 describes a system and method for operating one or multiple centrifuges using a protocol record database. The user can search the database for the centrifugation protocol necessary for a particular specimen or type of separation desired.
While the foregoing systems and methods have increased the degree of automation of sample handling workflows, several aspects of processing samples are still not flexible enough for many tasks of clinical diagnostics, including the simultaneous centrifugation of samples requiring different centrifugation protocols. As a consequence, centrifugation times of current pre-analytical systems are too long, the sample turnaround numbers are too low, and/or a multitude of centrifuges are necessary to guarantee fast processing of samples requiring different centrifugation protocols by using multiple centrifuges in parallel, which significantly increases the cost of pre-analytical systems.